Yes. Nobody is arguing this. The Tigers look like one of the best teams in baseball. The Sox on paper don't have the same offense. Everybody agrees with you.

Annnnnd this is the garbage that makes people call you out. No reason to be optimistic? Seriously? You're basically saying here that there is nothing, not a single thing to look forward to this season, that it's a foregone conclusion that it's going to absolutley suck and we shouldnt even bother with it. You cite "experts" as proof--experts who are wrong just as often as they are correct.

But that's not even it. It's the attitude of "this team is going to be terrible and anyone who can't see that is an idiot." Despite the fact that people said the same thing last season, and the Sox won 85 games (and handed the division to Detroit-they had it virtually won before they choked). As though the Sox don't have a lot of young players who still have a chance to improve, or a guy in Rios who had an outstanding season, or a legitimate ace in Sale and a former Cy Young winner in Peavy, or a talented young manager entering only his second season, or one of the best defenses and top pitching staffs in baseball top to bottom.

No, when it comes to the Sox, all that bears mentioning is the negative, all the time. Nothing positive can possibly happen, we need to assume the worst and if we don't, we're stupid. Meanwhile, Detroit is going to have everything go right all year for some reason I still don't understand--probably just because they don't play in Chicago.

The Sox MIGHT be terrible this year. They also might NOT be. There's a chance they could be really good, and Detroit will be ravaged by injuries. Who knows? It's spring training, that's an exciting time of year, and people want to talk about baseball--but every thread has been devolving into the same pissing match over and over again. They all blend together at this point--someone makes a topic, and pretty soon its invaded by some variation of "it's not going to matter, this team sucks, these guys are going to get hurt, etc." and then we're back here.

It's not personal attacks. It's just really old at this point.

Way to miss the point entirely.

It's not the Ra-Ra crowd I'm calling out for personal attacks. It's when I say something like "Danks is likely to miss the first month of the season" and I get called out for, as one poster put it, "making stuff up", when all I was doing was giving it an OPTIMISTIC estimation. And the reason I'm called out? Because for posters like that, it's a personal thing.

It's not the Ra-Ra crowd I'm calling out for personal attacks. It's when I say something like "Danks is likely to miss the first month of the season" and I get called out for, as one poster put it, "making stuff up", when all I was doing was giving it an OPTIMISTIC estimation. And the reason I'm called out? Because for posters like that, it's a personal thing.

Holy crap. You were making an optimistic estimation that Danks would miss at least one month when no news outlet has reported that it was even likely he would miss any time? You're in your own world, Munchy.

Yes. Blown out of proportion by idiots who get mad when others don't take BP seriously for making predictions that are continually well off. Idiots who say "THEY ARE WELL RESPECTED!" and then say the predictions are irrelevant and people are dumb for putting too much stock into them.

No, blown out of proportion by folks who literally don't spend a second more looking into BP's methods and simply declare their work pointless based on the whole 0.1% of their work for the season they've bothered to look at. BP's does a lot more than just the preseason predictions, which at this point, I have to assume they release solely to watch the overreactions by the kind of people who think you can roll a 3.5 on a dice.

And again, you are more than free to think what you like of them but if you think that every front office in baseball isn't reading their work, then you're kidding yourself. You sound like the execs at Kodak who never invested in digital photography because they couldn't dream of a world where the nerds on their computers would replace the film everyone grew up with and loved.

Apparently all this content I read from them that is not related to the preseason predictions must be from someone else.

Really, the only reason they are even this big of a deal is because they are blown out of proportion by idiots.

Last I checked our prediction contest doesn't cost one single dime to play and very few of the posters claim to be some kind of expert or have tried to pass off their predictions as anything more than a best guess. Maybe some people out there are running some kind of statistical analysis to come up with their numbers but I doubt it and I don't think any of our prediction contest people are charging anyone money to view their stab at the crystal ball.

See that's the part that I find most hilarious is that there are a lot of statheads who actually think BP has some kind of special ability to predict this stuff and buy into the projections. Stats have a place in baseball and mean something, but BP tries to make it the e all and end all of the discussion and bluntly speaking, it's not.

__________________Riding shotgun on the Sox bandwagon since before there was an Internet...

Last I checked our prediction contest doesn't cost one single dime to play and very few of the posters claim to be some kind of expert or have tried to pass off their predictions as anything more than a best guess. Maybe some people out there are running some kind of statistical analysis to come up with their numbers but I doubt it and I don't think any of our prediction contest people are charging anyone money to view their stab at the crystal ball.

See that's the part that I find most hilarious is that there are a lot of statheads who actually think BP has some kind of special ability to predict this stuff and buy into the projections. Stats have a place in baseball and mean something, but BP tries to make it the e all and end all of the discussion and bluntly speaking, it's not.

Well those people are as hilariously misguided as the people who think BP is just some rag that nobody really pays any attention to. I mean ****, even a moron can see that things like injuries, roster moves, etc. will completely alter the roster of a team, in many cases, before the 1st pitch of the season is thrown. Nobody takes the BP projections to Vegas and drops $1,000,000 on the Sox winning exactly 77 games. If you think that's what people do with these then your "opponents" are figments of your imagination.

No, only Danks himself has said he would be ready for the season. Every outlet has said he's more likely to be held back. Keep in mind...HE ISN'T EVEN THROWING FROM A MOUND YET.

Wrong. Show one link, and it should be easy considering every outlet said he's more likely to be held back, that states he most likely will miss the first month. Just one is all we neeed. You are also wrong about what you typed in all capitals. He's been throwing from a mound for a month and a half. But don't let facts get in the way of your incorrect posts.

Well those people are as hilariously misguided as the people who think BP is just some rag that nobody really pays any attention to. I mean ****, even a moron can see that things like injuries, roster moves, etc. will completely alter the roster of a team, in many cases, before the 1st pitch of the season is thrown. Nobody takes the BP projections to Vegas and drops $1,000,000 on the Sox winning exactly 77 games. If you think that's what people do with these then your "opponents" are figments of your imagination.

No I didn't say that, but there certainly are a group of people who buy into this stuff way more than it's worth. I mean the standard deviation is what 5-6 wins (from past years that is what I remember)? So basically they are saying that the Sox are a 99% confidence interval to win 59-95 games. Even if' it's 3 its 68-87. Way to go out on a limb there BP...

It's not the Ra-Ra crowd I'm calling out for personal attacks. It's when I say something like "Danks is likely to miss the first month of the season" and I get called out for, as one poster put it, "making stuff up", when all I was doing was giving it an OPTIMISTIC estimation. And the reason I'm called out? Because for posters like that, it's a personal thing.

For the love of all that is holy...YOU ARE NOT BEING PERSONALLY ATTACKED!!! The only thing being attacked is your position. This Danks issue is a clear example. No media outlet is reporting a timetable, yet you keep stating he will miss the first month of the season...without posting anything to back your position. You telling me in this thread that I don't think for myself is more of a personal attack than anything said about your positions. So please, knock it off, because it's just a blatant falsehood.

__________________

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives- Jackie Robinson

No I didn't say that, but there certainly are a group of people who buy into this stuff way more than it's worth. I mean the standard deviation is what 5-6 wins (from past years that is what I remember)? So basically they are saying that the Sox are a 99% confidence interval to win 59-95 games. Even if' it's 3 its 68-87. Way to go out on a limb there BP...

For what seems like the millionth time, PECOTA does. not. project. W-L.

Do they do a simple manipulation to convert their data to W-L? Kind of yes. But that is not what the formulas spit out.

Are the Sox somewhere around the 8th-11th best team in the league? Of course, so stop losing your **** just because you don't like the numbers.

No.

__________________"I have the ultimate respect for White Sox fans. They were as miserable as the Cubs and Red Sox fans ever were but always had the good decency to keep it to themselves. And when they finally won the World Series, they celebrated without annoying every other fan in the country." Jim Caple, ESPN (January 12, 2011)

"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the (bleeding) obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." — George Orwell

To the person who thinks the Tigers are a lock for the Division based on their roster, all I have to say is "2006 White Sox." Many people felt that team was better than the 2005 team on paper. They lost nine more games than the '05 team and did not play in October.

Baseball is 162 games, too much can happen to make an accurate prediction in February (you're looking at 162 variables on game outcome alone, Then you have to factor in-season injuries which are 100% unknown in February). The NFL with only 16 games is easier to predict. Much easier.